Sky’s Adam Boulton is going flat out with a campaign for a televised debate during the general election.  Sky have a petition site, as well as giving their campaign plenty of airtime and column inches in The Times.

Usually the incumbent or the front runner in Britain finds an excuse to avoid a TV Debate which conventional thinking says could give rivals an opportunity to catch up in what can be an electorally decisive TV drama.  Although Cameron is enjoying a double digit poll lead he has told Sky he is up for it.  Clegg is of course keen for that crucial airtime.

Mandelson recently said Gordon would be keen, Downing Street immediately clarified it with a negative “no change”.  If Brown does bottle it, why not as Boulton hints, leave an empty podium?  Guido wonders if Labour could be cunning enough to offer in his place Mandelson, the real power in government, in the PM’s place.  Now that would be box office…

Everyman and his blog is doing an election results service based on, well, mostly watching TV, so Guido won’t bother with that. Very disappointed that Guido’s Libertas vote looks like it went to waste. At the New Ross polling station in Wexford on Friday a neighbour said “it is our job to choose between the liars”. Wise words.

Hoping UKIP beat Labour, very worried that Dan Hannan may have won his bet that Labour will come fifth in his region. Due to Pimms-related intoxication Guido offered him 10/1 odds. Ouch, think it is bedtime for Guido…

UPDATE : Nick Griffin will be thanking Gordon Brown tonight.  He could not have done it without him. Brown has achieved one policy goal, he got a British job for one British worker, the British National Party candidate who is going to Brussels.  Labour MPs should reflect on that, do they fear losing their jobs in an election more than they loathe the BNP.  As long as they keep a Scot who can’t connect with English working class voters as leader, the stronger the BNP becomes.

If you have ever wondered how it is that all the broadcasters always seem to end up with on-message Labour talking-heads spouting exactly the same drivel after an election, here is why – Labour HQ emails everyone a briefing on “lines to take” before they go on air.  The degree of control demanded by New Labour means ambitious MPs can’t be allowed to think up their own answers.

Hence we end up with a series of robotic talking heads mouthing the party line.  Backbenchers and cabinet ministers alike will all parrot the same form of words regardless of the question asked.  If you were watching the news yesterday you will have heard the script.  Guido is grateful to a “real socialist” co-conspirator for providing yesterday’s “lines to take”.  If you want to see it, Guido has uploaded the dull script to here.   Hopefully the next leader of the Labour Party will be less Stalinist and permit Labour MPs to think for themselves…

UPDATE : It appears that Paul Waugh has blogged this already.

UKIP are complaining that ballot papers are being handed out folded over and people don’t realise their name is over the fold. Supporters are complaining to their party HQ that UKIP were not on the ballot paper…

The SNP are demanding the immediate cessation of automated marketing calls by the Labour party – using the voice of Coronation Street actress Liz Dawn. The calls directly market the Labour party – a breach of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003.  Desperately deprived of supporters willing to knock on doors the Labour Party is willing to break the law…

UPDATE : Source says the Information Commissioner has already reprimanded Charlie Whelan’s Unite union yesterday for doing automated calls.

A TaxPayers’ Alliance/ComRes poll (report) asked 101 MEPs and 1020 members of the British public their opinions.  One of the statements respondents were asked to agree or disagree with was a bit of a trap for those on the Brussels gravy-train

MEPs should pay a lower rate of income tax than the people they represent;

The public were overwhelmingly opposed to the idea that MEPs should enjoy lower taxes than their constituents, by 82% to 15%.  10% of MEPs were openly in favour of the proposition of lower taxes for themselves, whilst 75% were publicly opposed.  Not so bad you think, they on the whole accept that all should be equal before the law.

Except MEPs have already voted for themselves a special tax rate. They say one thing to the public but vote in the opposite direction in the EU Parliament itself.

UPDATE : The BBC also polled the British public, finding that most people think most MPs are corrupt and when asked whether they trusted MPs to tell the truth, 20% said they did and 76% said they did not.  Which shows the truth that of the saying “you can fool some 20% of the people all the time”….

62% said they believed MPs put their own self-interest ahead of the country and their constituents. You can’t fool all of the people all of the time…

It is election time and leafleting canvassers can be annoying pests knocking at your door.  Print out this poster and attach it to the nearest street lamp post outside your house, remembering of course to fill in the name of your expense troughing local MP in the space provided. Piano wire can be useful to secure the poster to the lamp post. You may want to keep some spare…

According to a Populus poll for The Times,  the Tories are on 30%, UKIP have surged to 19%, Labour fell to 16%, the Liberal Democrats are on 12%.  The Greens are on 10% and the BNP trail with 5%.  The BNP will be lucky to get a seat…

Yesterday Guido did momentarily consider voting for Fine Gael, Libertas however have guaranteed one more vote in Wexford today.  This is obviously not some cheap photo-opportunity publicity stunt putting words in the mouth of page three girl Amy Diamond :“I am delighted to bare all for Libertas. What have MEPs got to hide?  I want them to get everything off their chest like me. Stop covering up if they’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.”

Robin Matthews, who leads Libertas in the UK, makes the point that: ‘The expenses scandal is rife in Europe, it is not just our MPs here at Westminster with their noses in the trough. Greater abuse is taking place at the European Parliament. The only way to sort this out and make change is by MEPs baring all and letting us see what they have spent our money on’.  Quite.

Good spot by Tory Bear, this is apparently his first Twitter and is supposedly a genuine reply to Austin Mitchell MP.  Get ready, Nick Brown is one of Gordon’s most trusted confidantes…

UPDATE 12.10 : Nick Brown’s Twitter account has been deleted.  Think that suggests it was genuine.

Not a single voter had the opportunity to mandate Gordon Brown to be Prime Minister – his thugs even scared off internal party rivals – now the Prime Minister without a mandate wants a quango without a mandate, with placemen appointed by politicians.  Where do the voters and taxpayers come in to this equation?  We have been here before, the Commissioner for Standards was a political appointment to watch over the integrity and honesty of politicians.  When Elizabeth Filkin naively took her job seriously she was hounded out of office.  Not exactly a good precedent for “independent” regulation.

We need reforms that make politicians more directly and immediately accountable to voters.  Douglas Carswell is on the money, we want the power of voter recall for underperforming politicians, we need to be involved in the open selection of candidates before every election.   We need to empower voters, not the party machines.  Too many constituencies are the permanent property of lazy, sleazy politicians.  The worst expenses abusers were in the safest seats.